Enhancing Knowledge, Interest, and Self-Efficacy in STEM Through a Summer STEM Exploration Program

Many researchers believe that career interests and career plans start developing as early as middle school. However, high school students often passively eliminate technical career options with course choices that do not meet the needs of a STEM academic path. Consequently, providing career exploration programs in the last two years of high school is often too late to give students time to adequately prepare for further study in STEM fields, which may potentially result in depleting the ranks of future STEM majors especially in underrepresented populations. Researchers further believe that fostering an early interest in STEM, supporting student success and confidence in STEM, and providing an improved understanding of STEM career paths will encourage students to pursue STEM careers at a time when they can still make academic choices that will enhance their potential for future success. In an effort to increase subject matter knowledge, interest and self-efficacy in STEM, a federally designated Hispanic-serving community college in the San Francisco Bay Area developed the STEM Institute, a three-week program for current high school freshmen and sophomores interested in exploring Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). The program introduces STEM through experiential learning using hands-on/real-world projects, classroom/lab instruction, speakers, on-campus field trips and workshops in five STEM fields of study. This paper describes the evolution of the STEM Institute, including challenges encountered and strategies employed to overcome those challenges. It also examines the effect that the program had on student interest and self-efficacy in STEM, employing non-parametric statistical tests to compare repeated measurements of student interest and self-efficacy. Program impact on the subject matter knowledge of student participants is also discussed. The paper further highlights best practices that have been developed at the STEM Institute host college to assist other institutions in developing a similar program to increase subject matter knowledge as well as interest and self-efficacy in STEM.